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( ECOIIOMIC SURVEY

22 Economic Survey EXECUTIVE INTFlLlGENCE REVIEW May 22-May 28, 1979

© 1979 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited.
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L ittle that happened in the post-World War II period
still inspires such anger or passion in the United States
as the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Cuba
"just 90 miles off the coast of Florida," an event
triggered 20 years ago last January with the fall of the
Batista government. The "Pearl of the Antilles" fell
under " Soviet domination." Political scientists and
others almost unanimously rank this as one of the
worst of America's foreign policy failures in the 20th
century.
Cuba is indeed one of the most outstanding
examples of United States foreign policy failures-but
not in the way most people understand. Cuba, under
the leadership of Fidel Castro, is one of the few
humanist republics in the world today. As the
accompanying report documents, gigantic economic
strides have been taken through policies premised on
the advancement of the skill level of the country's
population. The U.S. "failure" is not found in Cuba's
present "socialist" status, but in the policy which forced
Cuba to break with the U.S. in order to develop; and
in the contin uing U.S. policy which defines Cuba-and
its republican conception of development-as hostile to
U.S. interests.
It's time America faced up to facts: the republican
United States can live with socialist Cuba, and a
principled basis for cooperation can and must be
negotiated. What the U.S. could not live with was the
drug-centered Cuba of before; neither could the
Cubans. No more subversive and corrupt center of
influence, no more serious threat to U.S. strategic
interests existed in the Caribbean than Batista's
Havana-a center of the international drug-running
networks known informally as "Dope, Incorporated."
Today the United States is more threatened than
ever by the portion of drug plague originating in the
Caribbean, but its center is no longer Cuba. Now it is
virtually every British colony and former colony in the
area whose economies are increasingly falling under
the domination of the International Monetary Fund
and British-directed international drug traffic with the
general corruption and degradation that accompany it.
May 22-May 28, 1979 EXECUTIVE INTElLIGENCE REVIEW
The Castro government wiped Havana off the
International Monetary Fund's map-off "Dope,
Inc.'s" map. The Cubans rapidly eradicated the drug
problem with a relentless crackdown action which
Dope Inc.'s British Board of �irectors has not yet
forgiven. One noted American journalist a few years
back complained bitterly that the Cuban Revolution
had destroyed the "old flavor" of Havana, reporting
that after a lengthy search of Havana, he was unable to
find any prostitutes at all!
The 'Red Sea' myth
For 20 years, U.S. policy toward the developments in
Cuba has obsessively centered on the alleged red danger
of Soviet-Cuban influence in the area. Three weeks
ago, one of the most ludicrous red scares to date was
generated around the March, 1979 coup in Grenada
which replaced the ruling Pinochet-allied government
of Charles Gairy (a practitioner of voodoo) with a
government which has stated its friendliness toward
Cuba. U.S. State Department officials have already
expressed their "concern" following rumors in the press
of arms shipments in "mysterious Cuban crates"
marked "Cement" unloaded at a Grenada dock after
the coup!
A strategic threat? Grenada is an island of 100,000
people, whose principal export is nutmeg. A spicy
story, indeed!
Yet, this is the stuff out of which "missile crises"
are made, with the source of each new red scare
invariably traceable to one of the London-based
strategic think-tanks or their state-side "clones." For
instance, Carter Administration policy toward Cuba
has been based on the Latin American report of the
Critical Choices Commission (Ccq, written by two
Kissinger colleagues formerly at Georgetown's Center
for Strat<:gic and International Studies, Roger Fontaine
and James Theberge. The report contains one scenario
after another for drawing Soviet-allied Cuba into a
confrontation with the U.S.
The CCC report asserts that the "ultimate aim of
U.S. policy" is to "reintegrate a democratic Cuba into
Economic Survey 23
the western hemispheric system. ... Cuba is a test case
for the United States. ... Making Cuba the socialist
camp's first true deserter is a good policy because it is
a possibility." Renewing relations with the Castro-led
government is considered only as it would aid in
splitting Cuba from the Soviet Union, or foster internal
factions against Castro.
The CCC strategy simply won't work. Over the past
20 years, a po�erfuI national identity has been created
in Cuba through what amounts to one of the most
rapid transformations from backwardness to modern
growth in recent history. Beginning in the mid-1970s,
Cuba began institutionalizing her revolution in repub­
lican form, a process culminating with the adoption of
the new constitution in 1976. Elections followed shortly
thereafter-the presidency, executive bodies, the Na­
tional Assembly, and regional and local representatives,
are now all elected posts.
The active functioning of constitutional life com­
pletes a phase of Cuban development, providing the
Cuban citizen with direct and permanent access to the
planning process of nation-building. The present
National Assembly discussions of the Twenty-Year
Development Plan, debating the priorities for allocating
the nation's resources into the next century, epitomize
that process.
Cuba's challenge to the u.s.
Cuba's fundamental break with the U.S. occurred over
one basic issue, which had nothing to do with
communism or the Soviets: development.
In May, 1959, Fidel Castro headed a delegation
from the "new Cuba"-not then avowedly commu­
nist-to a Washington, D.C. meeting of Latin Ameri­
can Foreign Ministers, the "Committee of 21." Castro's
speech, which a Brazilian delegate described as express­
ing the aspirations of all Latin America, focused on the
need for U.S. aid for real industrial development­
specifically, a $30 billion, lO-year investment plan�
"What we are proposing," said Castro, "will not
adversely affect the United States. It will benefit future
generations, since with.a developed Latin America, the
24 Economic Survey EXECUTIVE INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
U.S. will have more commerce, just as it has more
commerce with· a developed Canada than with a
backward Canada. Besides, if we solve the economic
problems now, we will lay the base for a humanist
democracy in the future." The U.S. flatly refused the
proposal. Cuba was forced onto other paths for nation­
building.
The famed August, 1961 conference of the Alliance
for Progress in Punta del Este, Uruguay encapsulated
the bitter U.S.-Cuban debate. The U.S., "in feverish
competition with Cuba," as New York Times corre­
spondent Juan de Onis later wrote, had convened the
meeting in response to pressures throughout the
continent for a serious development program. The U.S.
was only, offering promises of a debt bailout.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara, leading the Cuban dele­
gation, issued a challenge the U.S. has yet to answer:
present a serious aid package for the industrialization
of the continent. Characterizing the Alliance's version
of "appropriate technology" as a policy of massive
"outhouse" building, Che dared the Conference to
reconvene 20 years later�and compare the results of
Cuba's industrialization policy with the nations of the
I
Alliance and their latrines.
Now, nearly 20 years later, Cuba wins Guevara's
challenge. While most of the continent is starving-and
still without adequate latrines!-Cuba's economy has
reached the industrial take-off stage with one of the
most skilled labor pools in the Third World.
This is the real "secret" behind the enormous
respect Cuba commands in the Third World today.
Thousands of Cuban professionals, construction work­
ers, and military advisors have been requested for
construction projects throughout the Third World­
Army Corps of Engineers-style. In addition, Cuba has
taken an active leadership role in such international
forums as the Non-Aligned Nations and the United
Nations. Cuba will host the Summit of the Non­
Aligned Nations in Havana this September, and
President Castro, in his capacity as Chairman of the
Conference, is considering personally delivering �he
report of the meeting to the UN General Secretariat.
May 22-May 28, 1979
 The state directs the economy
The following excerpts were taken from Cuba's new
socialist constitution, enacted in 1976, by the People's
Power Assemblies and the Council of State, Cuba's
ruling institutions.
Article XVI. The state organizes, directs and controls
the economic life of the nation in accordance with
the central plan of socio-economic development in
whose elaboration and executiqn the workers of all
the branches of the economy ,and the other spheres
of social life have an active and conscious partici­
pation.
The development of the economy serves the
purpose of strengthening the socialist system, of
increasingly satisfying the material and cultural
needs of the society and' of the citizens and of
promoting the flowering of the human personality
and of human dignity and serves thel progress and
the security of the country and the national capacity
to fulfill the i nternati on a list duties of our people.
Article XXXVIII. The state orients, fosters, :�lId
Cuba's much-commented-on Africa policy, as we
show below, is best understood as a direct extension of
this commitment to spread economic development
throughout the Third Wodd, and not some terrifying
spread of "communist militarism" wherever possible.
That the former is in fact the essence of Cuba's Africa
policy was proved beyond doubt by the remarkable
challenge presented to the United States by Cuban Vice
President Carlos Rafael Rodriguez a year ago on U.S.
national TV. In an interview with CBS correspondent
Barbara WaIters on May 30, 1978, Rodriguez laid out
the basis on which detente could be built between Cuba
and the U.S.
"We could cooperate in Africa ... western powers
... western people, ... the Soviet Union '" Cuba. I
May 22-May 28, 1979 EXECUTIVE INTELLIGENCE REYIEW
J
promotes education, culture, and science in all their
manifestations .... In order to make this principle a
reality, general education and specialized scientific,
technical and artistic education are combined with
work, development research, physical education,
sports, participation in political and social activities,
and military training ... education is free. The state
maintains a broad scholarship system for students
and provides the workers with mUltiple opportunities
to study with a view to the universalization of
education. In order to raise the level of culture of
the people, the state fosters and develops artistic'
education, the vocation for creation and the culti­
vation and appreciation of art.
... Creation and investigation in science are free.
The state encourages and facilitates investigation
and gives priority to that which is aimed at solving
the problems related to the interest of society and
the well-being of the people; the state makes ii
possible for work�rs to �ngage in scientific work and
to contribute to the development of science.
invite the President of the United States to think about
the possibility of cooperating for development in
Africa. There is room for cooperation ... for progress
... for development. ... Africa needs financing, as every
underdeveloped country needs financing. Not only in
Africa, but in' Latin A merica and in Asia. We could
cooperate in the' problems of development for these
countres without fighting. There are many things in
which you can put your money and your equipment. It
would be a good business for the United States ... that
is what the Founding Fathers talk about, that is what
Jefferson talked about, and it's the only way to see
peace."
-Gretchen Small
I
Economic Survey 2S